Stone Will

by Kirill Klevanski

  Hadjar, after adjusting his sword, came up to the huge marquee. It was decorated richly, with an enormous entrance that fueled one’s imagination.

  “Be quick,” Dogar told his assistant cheerfully, going inside.

  Hadjar hurried into the marquee after him.

  The inside looked as lavish as the outside had. There were no floors in all the other tents. At best, there were mats that had been placed on the ground. But in here, Hadjar had to climb some steps to get to the wooden deck of the General's marquee.

  Several chests filled with scrolls stood along the walls. A long, rectangular table with carved chairs was in the center of the marquee. In the distance, a bed was visible behind a luxurious curtain. It wasn’t like the bed where Hadjar slept (though his bed was still better than what he’d had for the last ten years). It was a really spacious double bed with a woolen blanket, a comfortable, thick mattress, and pillows stuffed full of feathers.

  Yes, the generals lived well... and no one could say that it was undeserved. Well, at least in this particular case.

  A map made from animal skin had been stretched out across on the table. Various flags, stone turrets, soldiers, miniature cavalry, etc. had been placed on its surface. There were also long sticks with coloring at the top. These were the pointers.

  Various senior officers had come to attend the Council. Hadjar had already seen some of them. He noticed a tall, leggy woman with a scar across her face. She commanded the archers. All of the army’s archers!

  He also spotted the tall man with tanned skin and a slightly cocky gait. The locals believed they were gods of war. The cavalry was nearly worshipped.

  In addition to them, Hadjar noticed a few other familiar faces in passing. There were about twenty senior officers and only three assistants present for the Council.

  The always arrogant and sleek Colin was also present, of course. He looked at Hadjar like he was horse excrement.

  “Senior officer Dogar,” the General nodded. “Please join us. We were just getting started.”

  “My General.” Bear greeted her respectfully.

  The situation was businesslike, without any excess formality.

  “Tim,” the General addressed a short man who looked to be about thirty.

  The spymaster took a pointer in his hand.

  “The military intelligence reports that the nomads are currently moving to take Zagr Fort. It should take them two weeks to arrive on horseback.”

  The officer moved three horsemen figurines…

  “Right now, they are at the Blue Wind ridge. They're stocking up on provisions for their horses and preparing arrows. As you probably know, the greatest threat is their horse archers.”

  The three cavalrymen figurines were left standing on the seam of the map, which marked the mountain ridge. The General nodded and turned to the other woman in the tent.

  “Lian, what do you have to say?”

  The archer thought about it for a bit, and then also picked up a pointer.

  “I can post my archers here, here, and here.” She put three archer figurines atop the sides of the Fort. “If they decide to try and take this Fort by encircling it, then let them get washed away by the rain of arrows.”

  “What if they hit us from the front?”

  “Then it will only take me half an hour to move my forces to the front.”

  “They will get at least the first seven groups of horse archers through in half an hour,” the cavalryman shook his head. “We’ll have a massacre fight on our hands, up close, and your archers will be useless as usual. My guys can go around them and launch arrows into their unprotected back.”

  “Your guys can’t even get it into a woman who is in their bed, and here it will be necessary to get an arrow into the enemy at a distance of seven hundred steps.”

  “Come with your ladies to my camp tonight and we'll show you our skills.”

  “Who would ever want to see your-”

  “Officers!” The General raised her voice slightly, but it was enough to end the argument.

  Everyone was on edge, which meant that these kinds of arguments weren’t all that surprising.

  “Lian, send two teams to the flanks. The third group will be with the main forces.”

  “Yes, my General,” Lian nodded, rearranging the toy archers.

  On the map, these movements looked simple, but in reality... Well, thanks to South Wind and the Master, Hadjar had received an excellent education. Including a military one.

  The young officer was well versed in military affairs, tactics, and strategy. He wasn't a military genius, but he’d earned Haver's approval in the past.

  “Tuur, any suggestions?”

  A man with what looked like glasses on his face took a pointer. He looked like an ordinary scientist, though he wore a dagger on his belt.

  “We'll set traps in the north and northwest. That way, we get rid of the danger of being attacked by their reinforcements. This will help us concentrate our troops in the east,” the scientist pointed to a hillock on the map. “The nomads will probably try to take that hill, and we won’t be able to do anything about it. It’s simply too far from the Fort.”

  “What if you were to arrange your artifacts around it in advance?”

  “They’d need to be brought in, powered up, hidden... even if my entire corps had started doing that a week ago, we wouldn't have had enough time.”

  The General shook her head.

  “It's not a good time for us,” she said. “The east wind is blowing. It’ll start raining soon. The nomads feel at home in such conditions, but it will be hard for our soldiers to adapt to them. Helion, what’s your opinion?”

  “I suggest we surprise them with a preemptive strike,” the cavalryman moved the toy riders forward. “I, along with half of my squad, will break through their defenses and Lian’s archers will support us.”

  “I support that suggestion,” the archer agreed, despite the fact she’d been arguing with the cavalryman not ten minutes ago. “When Helion breaks through their lines, my people will arrange for nightfall. The whole sky will be full of arrows.”

  “How many of our own soldiers will fall due to such an attack?”

  “Less than if we were to let the nomads come closer,” the adjutant spoke up for the first time. “I support Helion's plan. Maybe we should send Dogar's squad in with them. They're always on the front lines anyway. In any case, they’ll bear the brunt of it.”

  Everyone in the tent was silent. No one loved Colin, but right now he was making sense. A bloody sort of sense. It sounded like a sacrifice. But it made sense.

  If the horse archers of the nomads’ forces approached the Fort and encircled their army, the meat grinder would begin and hundreds of thousands of soldiers would fall.

  “Dogar?” The General raised her head slowly.

  She knew that she was sending one of her best officers to his death. And yet, it was the best possible option.

  “My people will obey your every order, my General. We will smash the enemy to pieces.”

  Bear was a simple man. He saw the enemy. He beat the enemy. That’s how his brain worked.

  However, Hadjar saw a more elegant solution on this map. Perhaps it hadn't been noticed by the others because they did not have a neural network. As soon as Hadjar had entered the tent, he’d ordered the analytical module to begin calculating the optimal solution for the situation, based on the data presented to them.

  The current power of the neural network was enough to highlight the most logical plans to implement.

  “My general,” Hadjar addressed the commander. “May I speak?”

  Now the people around the table were really silent. It was so quiet inside the tent that one could’ve heard a feather hit the ground.

  “A peasant speaking during the War Council…” Colin snorted. “What utter nonsense…”

  “Adjutant,” that time, to everyone's surprise, Colin had been interrupted by Hadjar himself. “You and I have
the same officer rank. The fact that you are serving directly beneath the general doesn’t make your rank any higher than mine. And, by calling me a peasant, you call yourself one as well.”

  Colin blinked several times and grabbed the hilt of his sword.

  “How dare you!”

  “If you have any complaints against me, then, according to the officers' regulations, we can resolve them with a duel.”

  No one intervened. Everyone wanted to watch the show for a while and relax a little. Even the general remained silent. Hadjar saw a gleam of support in her gaze. She could turn a blind eye to many things and tolerate quite a lot from the entitled brat. But she could never forgive the fact that three soldiers had died because of him.

  She valued the life of every soldier in her army.

  “Do you think I’ll stoop so low as to cross swords with a commoner?”

  “It seems to me like…” Hadjar pretended to think. “The general saved you last time.”

  “She saved you, you foul smelling peasant! Or do you think I'll really fight at only half my power again?”

  “You can even bring your friends along to help you, adjutant. In a week, just before the march, when you come back from chasing the bandits around, I’ll be ready to fight you.”

  Silence descended on the tent once again. Many had heard of that very fight. Many knew about Hadjar's talent in the path of the sword. But they also knew that he was only at the first level of the Bodily Rivers, while Colin had the power of the Transformation stage.

  The difference was almost two whole stages! That was a difference that only geniuses could overcome. Well, Hadjar was talented, but he wasn’t one of those young monsters being hunted by the clans, sects, and Academies of the Empire itself.

  “I'll cut off your tongue right now, bastard!”

  “Adjutant!” the general was still calm and poised. “If you draw your sword, you will find yourself without your hands. Without your legs. Without your heart. And I'll mount your head on my own spear, right in the center of the camp. And when your father comes here, then …”

  No one ever heard what came after that ‘then,’ but judging from the General’s look, nothing good would’ve followed the word.

  “In a week, peasant,” Colin snarled through his teeth. “Please forgive me... my general,” the adjutant almost spat again. “But I have no time for this farce. The bandits can’t wait.”

  Sliding the blade back into its sheath with a loud screech, he left.

  “Speak, officer. We will hear your ideas.”

  Hadjar cleared his throat and gave a mental order to the neural network.

  [I am processing your request... The request has been processed. I am creating an optimal plan for solving the problem given to me... A plan has been drawn up. I am initiating the projection ...]

  “The east winds will bring rain. But the nomads will strike from the east first. The roads on the ridge will have been washed away and we’ll return from the route almost a week earlier than the nomads will come down from the mountain.”

  “That time is not enough to set traps,” Tuur said thoughtfully. “But…”

  “But, please, let me finish,” Hadjar spoke as politely as possible. “Yes, we will not have time to set up magical traps.”

  “Trenches!” the scholar exclaimed. “We can dig trenches and put light infantry there. They will quickly occupy the hill during the battle and prevent the nomads from going forward. Plus, they can finish off two thousand horsemen.”

  “And there is a forest in the southwest,” Lian pointed out immediately. “If we cut down enough trees to make several archery towers, then I can cover the perimeter with one group and free up two more to support the army.”

  “We can place a detachment of cavalry at the bend of the river,” Hadjar moved one of the equestrian figurines. “Well, this isn’t a hill, but the distance is enough to allow you to accelerate to a gallop. The heavy cavalry will crush the western flank of the horse archers and open a passage for the infantry.”

  “And then we can surround them,” the general finished. “I’m surprised none of us noticed that the east wind could give us a week to prepare…”

  “I’m from a mountain village,” Hadjar came up with something to say immediately. “The rains often blocked our roads and we played soldiers out of boredom.”

  “Here's another thing,” Lian continued...

  As a result, the council lasted until late into the evening. The Prince didn’t need to say anything else because the neural network’s prompts were enough for the experienced officers to get the most out of the situation.

  Hadjar, absently following what was happening, only thought about one thing - how to survive before the start of the battle. How could he become stronger during the week and prevent Colin from killing him? Because Hadjar had no doubt that the fight would be to the death.

  Chapter 44

  “May I ask you a question?” Nero, chewing a blade of grass, was lying on the pyramid of logs.

  They were the only people on the parade ground at this late hour. The lazy son of a minor official who liked chatting about women and their charms, and Hadjar himself. He, breathing heavily under the weight of the five “shells” on his shoulders, was running laps around the training ground.

  Nero, looking at how his friend was torturing himself, mentally thanked fate for the fact that he hadn’t been the one who had challenged the adjutant to a duel. For the sixth day in a row, Hadjar was doing nothing but training from sunrise to late at night. Actually, he didn’t rest at night, either, since he was constantly meditating.

  “Feel free to ask away,” Hadjar exhaled and kept running.

  “Well, I know there are many strange things under the endless sky, but you, my friend, are something amazing. Why did you challenge Colin to a duel? He's several times stronger than you.”

  Hadjar, after looking at the shadow which a pillar in the center of the parade ground was casting, threw the logs off of his shoulders. He'd been running for five hours. That should have been enough to warm up the last day before the fight.

  He had very different plans for tomorrow, so he would not be able to train. The adjutant would be returning from his fruitless search the next day. Hadjar was convinced that as soon as Colin set foot in the camp, he'd immediately call for their duel to commence.

  “To become stronger,” Hadjar responded, sipping the doctor’s potion.

  Nero turned away and almost stuck out his tongue in disgust. The taste of that “medicine” was so loathsome that it could poison a well or turn a lake into a swamp. But the officer gulped it down like it was fine wine. Although, something told Nero that Hadjar had never tried anything stronger than water.

  He was damn right about that.

  “Stronger? Maybe you meant to say - deader?”

  Hadjar still had four minutes of rest left, so he leaned his back against the log pyramid. He put a blade of grass in his mouth, following the example of Nero, and raised his gaze toward the sky. There, in the endless, blue expanse of it, huge, fluffy clouds were floating. Serene, gigantic, they haughtily gazed at the earth, shielding people from the sun that was already well beyond the horizon.

  They bathed in the scarlet and gold colors, turning from white giants into bloody titans.

  “Now I only have two choices,” Hadjar said slowly. “Either I'll become stronger, or he'll kill me.”

  Nero turned and looked down at Hadjar. His friend was standing calmly, even serenely. Just like those clouds in the sky.

  “Are you using this situation to motivate yourself?”

  “I like to push myself.”

  “Gods and demons, Hadj,” Nero stretched out, turning back to the sky. “I’d thought Dogar was crazy, but it turned out I was sleeping near a real psycho all this time. Just one tent away”

  “I have a marquee,” Hadjar remarked and, smiling slightly, added: “Only privates live in tents.”

  “It doesn't matter.”

  T
he Prince had at least two more minutes of rest left, so he decided to continue the conversation. Recently, he’d become very close to Nero. Well, they couldn’t exactly be called friends (that didn’t prevent Nero from using that term), but it was pleasant to talk to him.

  “Why didn't you take the officer exam?”

  “I am too modest for all the luxury being one entails, Mr. Officer.”

  Hadjar laughed. Nero smiled. It was a slightly tense and nervous expression.

  “In our squad, you show the best results in all areas. Well, after me, of course.”

  “Of course,” Nero mocked Hadjar. “It’s just that I’m not crazy enough to train for twelve hours a day, and then spend eight more in the woods. When do you even have time to sleep?”

  “I get a special potion from the doctor.”

  “Demon!” Nero exclaimed.

  They were silent for a bit.

  “My father,” his voice suddenly sounded from the top of the pyramid. “He was an officer, too. A long time ago. I was quite small then. I don't remember much, but... In general, I don't want that life. I'll serve my five years and return home. With money. And, I promise you, Hadjar, I'm going to have a great feast. And not only a feast - all the families of Spring Town will have to hide their daughters from me for a whole week!”

  “I think they're hiding them already.”

  “Sure,” Nero nodded. “But I'm not a sucker, either. I'm gonna go through the gardens, then up to the roofs, and climb in through the windows. Every girl will be happy to spread her legs…”

  “No more details, please.”

  They were silent again. The shadow cast by the post almost reached the mark showing nine o'clock in the evening. Hadjar had never understood why there were 24 hours in a day. Maybe the multiple suns and moons followed each other closely on this planet (if it even was a planet)?

  That sounded crazy, though.

  “Do you understand that if you kill Colin, his father will get you?”

  Well, Hadjar couldn’t argue with that. Of course, he’d had a great plan for how to get justice for Stefa’s restless soul and not follow the girl in death. But everything, as usual, had gone slightly wrong.